narrator: on this episode of "earth focus," climate change is forcing traditional dairy producers to look for more sustainable methods. in central california, farmers have fnd wayays to reduce and evenen reue methane gas, while in eastern africa, drought is creating a market for an unexpected source of milk.

announcer: "earth focus" is made possible in part by the orange county community foundation and the farvue foundation. man: so this is a tradition here. we put cups in the freezer, best w way to drink mi. here, a ttoast. to a good d day. [cows mooing] one thing i've learned about cows here, of which about 2,500 are milking and then you have a dry period, in a pererfect worl, 660 days. [cows mooing] she has a calf, and then she produces milk again for another year. [whistles] lot of our milk gets made into butter. and then some of our

milk also goes to making mozzarelella cheese. there's a good chance you're tasting some oof our milklk every day. [engine starts] he likes--he likes driving papa around. i'm just--i'm teaching him for later when i'll actually need a driver. you're gonna go out the same way. go slow. you know, a few years ago, california adopted a regulation that really foforced our industy to startrt looking at ways to mitigate the e methane that coms off or out of thehe cow. you ner want to get more regegulations thrown n on top of you. they'y'e extreremely hard to deal wiwithd sometimes you can't deal with them. everybody's kind ofof grapplpling. cows s make manurue every day and very consistently do. cow eats, you know, dry

matterer-wise, we're aroround 5o 660 pounds a day. so, , you kno, all that goes in one end, makes a little bitit of milk, and d at of f it comes o out. i probobaby maybe undererestimated w what te potential is for methane going into the environment. you know, we could eaeasily igne stuff like this, but we're a generational family. we live on our farms. we want to take care of the water, we want to take care of the air 'cause we're tryiying to do something that is gonna be e positive fory facility, for our industry, and for t the environment. having sd that, we have to stay economically viable or i'm not in business. reportter: governor jererry bron today signed a bill regulating

emissions from dairy cows and landndfills to fight climamate change beyond carbon-based greenhouse gases. . now, the bil mandates a 40% reduction in methanane and hydrofluoric carbn by 2030. lara: we will reduce methane emissions 40%, reducining organc waste in landfills and working with our dairy industry to reduce e emissions from cows and manure. man: when manure sits in a deep pond, a naturally-occurring bacteria that work in a cow's stomach, or actually in a c co's 4 stomachs, those same bacteria keep eating the left over little bits of sugar and other calories, and they emit biogas, which is a combination of methane and co2. both of those are greenhouse gases. and one ccow tends to hahave about 4 to5 ttons per year of c co2 equival. if you want to look at it ththat way, essentially y it's aboboute se e greenhououse gas f footpris a vehehicle, asas a car. we are a dairy digester development and operations company. a dairy digester is a piece ofof equipmentnt that processes daiairy manure e and

extracts methane g gas, which hs esessentially a naturally-y-occurringg biogas that vents ouout of manure. . a digester's s just a device for capturing that gas so it doesn't vent into the air, but instead can be used usefully. and so if you capture it, you get a twofer. you get to preventnt the gaseses from escag into thehe environmement and you haveve a usable fuel. so all w'e done here i is we've taken n a normal-sized manure ponond which hhas a wholele bunch of f liquid mananure, we've coverered it uph a flexible membrane so that there's no oxygen. and those little bacteria in there, they think they're still in a cow's stomach. that's why we call it a digester. they eat the remaining calories, they emit methane gas, which rises to the top, that we capture, preventing g the greenhouse gases from escapining into the air, and being able to use that gas as a fuel for other uses now. shyler: we get biogas from nenearby dairies. most t recente laid in a pipipeline thahat will collect biogagas from 11 or more lolocal dairieies, digesteters t local dairieses. and d then we e

it as it this proroduction facility fofor fuel, or in some caseses, we turnrn that renenewe natural gas s into a fuel didirectly. mamanure is imimporo the dadairies. they use e the nutrient value. these are dairyry farms. ththey really y . there's a symbiotic relelationship. they growow a lf their own food.d. the nutrients they get from manure are important for that. so this is a little bit lilike making lemonae ouout of lemonons. in my v vie's bbetter than thahat. it's kind f like mamaking lemonade out ofofi don't know, l lemon wastete. its prettyty cool. maas: jojoey arioso's a dadairy producer, one of the first famililies, actually, to put ina dairy facility in this particular area of the county.y. and so we need the producers to make this work. we wanant as may healthy, , stable proroducers around, and jojoey was the first one in this particular area. so we're building out to him and we're building to the neighbors as fast as we can.

arioso: we use clclean water to flushsh the calves. and then ths water r will go out to our p po. we'llll use it to flush thehe ls and the milk cows. and then after we separate, it'll eventually come back into the digester. and then after that, we'll use it to irrigate with. so it's--everything around hehere--all the water onon the m is recycled d 3 to 4 times. maas: when we approach a dairy, we explain to them their options. we come together with design, we oversee construction, and then we operate the facility. lyle and calgren renewablele fuels arere partnerg this s project. t they'veve gote leadad of the acactual gas c clp operarations. s so essentntialle deliver them the raw gas by working with the dairies, and they process the gas and get it into the pipeline on their plant. shyler: one of the options forr using that bioiogas is to turn t into c cng--compreressed natural gas. maas: so our final end product is natural gas. it's biologically no different than natural gas that flows in the pipes to your house. it can be

used for a variety of things, but we're going to use it for, and what we are using it for, is vehicle fuel. arioso: itit's really simple on the farm. we have a covered lagoon. we capture the gas from the cow. t they dry it just a bt herere, and then they pupush ito calgren, and then they do all the extra stuff, cleaning and everything that they need to do toto make it where they y can rl or reueuse the gagas on theirirn facility. so i it just madade at of sense. maas: the state of california has set a target that they want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the state, and it's particularly from the dairy industry. they want a 40% reduction by about the middle of the next decade. and it's a carrot and stick approach. they said to the dairy industry, "if you will voluntarily inststall these facilities and meet that goal, t then that's great. ififu dodon't, w we'll probabably rege you." and so the e dairy indust, working with our industry and others, have all found a way to make these projects profitable so the farmers can afford to put these in, can generate some revenue by doing it, and

hopefully forestall some regulation as welell. arioso: sshort term, of coururse you'u've got to pay fofor the initial investmement. but frfror standpoint, we didn't t have to put a lotot of capitatal out. te main thing i was worried about was making sure that if i do this, the state will recognize that i've mitigated my methane problem on m my farm. maas: : a facility like e this n the d dairy farm runs in ththe neighborhood of a fefew million dollars, depending on the size of the dairiry. the statate of california had somome funds available e that have e been vey beneneficial in n getting momore farmers to invest and reducing that capital cost. arioso: if there isis a positive note to this regulatition, thty aare willing to help our indnduy mitigate it, you know, witsosome dollars and then, you know, some science that, you know, on technology as we've just put in to help mitigate the problem. it's not just t the milk now. yu know, i kekeep saying g the milk becacause that's--every month wn i sit down to pay my bills, you know, up titill 3 mononths ago,t was only my milklk check. now, u

know, it''s the gas. the cow's actually gonnnna create another form of income, you knonow, reay driven by amazing technology.y. maaaas: the amomount of revevena digester c can create e for a fr depends on the fininancial arrangemenents. but inin generat cacan produce e a 6-figurere ino the fararm. so he''s geneneratiw rerevenue without t takingng additioional risk. . and it makt a lot t easier whehen you go b o ththe state anand ask to e expar dairiry or ask t to change y yor operations because you've shown that you're already p progressie and youo're alreready ahead of e curvrve in implementing envnvironmental protections.. arioso: you have to m make sure you comply with the newer regulatations, otheherwise yourm becomes w worthless. . and so, y inintent was t to preserveve the ofof my farm. . and even t thouh we'e're 3 m months intoto it, is pretty promising so far. maas: i thihink the main reasona dairy farmer wouldn't do this is if they aren't certain about the future of the dairy itself, which is really the question facing a lot of families is, can they continue to be competitive in california, in the modern ecoconomy. and d that's hard to. it takes scale, it takes

efficiency. it takes a lot of thinings, investstment in new technolology. many f farms would like to keep milking cowows as long as they y could, butut not every family can. arioso: a cow i is really an unbnbelievable creature. . i me, theyey consume tremendous s amos of byprododucts that t would be waste prproducts, yoyou know. ththey'rere able to o convert tt iinto milk a and beef anand nog. maasas: this is s easily thehe largesest dairy bibiogas projejn tthe united states. 3-4 million gallons of fufuel a year r is wt we think we''ll prproduce, andd we'e'll go o up from ththere. ss digester, in terms of greenhouse gagas impacts, wouould have thee impact as removing over 3,000 cars from thehe road. this w wt we hope is t the newest growth f the industry to try to produce more and more gas from america's dadairies. arioso: this gives us a way to tell our story and, you know, add to the story. yyou know,

we've had kind of the samame sty for a lonong time, and we can protect t e envirmentnt, but also, you know, k kind of conone down this path of energy independence, the next technology that can make, you know, our farms more efffficient and more environmementally protective. shyler: i think that dairies in cacalifornia h have gone t thros and downs. mostly recenently i's been n tough timemes for them. marginsns haven't been n there.s is an opopportunity y for them o kind of expand a littttle bititn a wayay, they arare entering th energygy business,s, whichs s kd of coolol. ararioso: i''m pretty blessesedi mean, we have 4 generations on ththe farm. my dad i is still h. he just tururned 80. you know, d my grandson n won't t really appreciate this until later.. having said that, i want the next generationon to know t the pototential is s unlimited d ont youou can do wiwith what yoyou'e

doing. youou know, ddon't t evet short sighted and think that, you know,w, all's he can n do it milk outut of a cocow. this i ia be anotheher way of f making her more efficient, anand it's prety amazing. narrator: californian's concerned about climate change are searching for ways to reduce methane that stem from the state's more thahan 5.2 millllin cows. by cocontrast, east africn farmers facing historic drought are turning to a traditional alternative to quench their thirst.

[camels vocalizing]

[laughter] [speaking native language]

[children singing] warsame: i live in the u.s., in the state of georgia for the last 20 years. and i i was a rel eestate attotorney, so i canan l ice to an eskimo. camel milk is the next generation dairy. that's what i believe. momost of the people are goioing healthy at the moment. and they believe that, you know, camel milk is medicinal. as a result of that, a a lot of rich peopler middle upper class are drinking it. and mostly they're being prescribed by their doctors. we are working with universities and also research centers. they come here every 3 mononths. they come and check samples of milk.

and now we are working with the allergy doctors in lactose intolerance. those one, they are responding very positiively. we haven't exported yet, but i will be very glad if i see my product on any supermarket on the shelf. that way i will know that i made it. [horn honks] man: from an early age, i was very interested in the deserts. during the teenage yeyears, i ud to spend a lot of time in northehern kenya. and then i end up doing 7 years' research on camel milk production. there's quite a long history with camels in the family. yeah, long may it last.

the body of research is now beginning to show the benefits of drinking camel's milk. we've also done some work here in kenya looking at diabetics. although we couldn't prove it statistically, it was definitely an improvement in blood sugar r control. and tha's another thing with camel's milk, it has a very high vitamin "c" content. so for societies who don't normally eat fruit or vegetables, that's where they've been getting their vitamin "c" sources and have been perfectly healthy all this time. on the other side, some of the benefits you might have heard is that it t has a slimming effece, that it has good effecect on cholesterol and obesity. and so you may find that it t could actually also benefefit nutritin issues in the western world. because of this long history of the benefits of drinking camel's milk, we're seeing more and more

urban people taking an interest in buying camel's milk. man: we're in nairobi cbd, actually, the central business district, at a somali restaurant. you ask for tea,a, they'll just bring you a camel tea without even asking. man: we have so many rather different types of products bebeing taken out of this milk, camel milk. for example, we've got yogurt, we've gogot the carl latte, which is loved specifically by the somalis. ahmed: it helps with my digestion. and, you know, i feel energized. and you can actually feel it instantly. when you drink, that day you'll actually feel it, like it's a detox. simpkin: with the human population growth globally, the world has been more intensification in terms of producing food for humans. we all know the impact of livestock in terms of being blamed for global warming.g. in some countries, there's g gonna be ls

rainfall or higher variability in the rainfall. and the camel is going to be one of the best adapted animals to deal with that. so really they are an animal of the e future. announcer: "earth focus" is made possible in part by the orange county community foundation and the farvue fofoundation.

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